What is Spiritual Necromania?

Spiritual Necromania is a morbid crave and desire to retreat to our past aberrations; meaning, the need to go back to what we left behind and the need to associate with whom we left behind. ‘Left behind’ is another way to describe something that is dead. The Collins Dictionary of Medicine describes Necromania as an unusual desire for the company of a dead body or dead bodies, often a body of a loved one.

Why does Necromania resonate with Christianity?

The authors in the New Testament enticingly remind us that Christ diminished the power of sin and sin no longer has power on us, other theologians emphasize that Christ died with our sins; therefore, our sins are dead. Apostle Paul one of the greatest Theologian minds in the history of Christianity reveals that our sins are dead when we gave them up and decided to follow Christ. In the eighth division of Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman churches, Paul advised them that;

For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. – Romans 8:13-14

Following Christ and allowing the spirit to lead us brings about a detachment from sins. This ideology of putting our bodies to death is practically the choice we make to satisfy our souls with the word of God rather than satisfying our bodies. We deprive our bodies when we give into Christ, and deprivation kills our bodies and its deeds. In his mail to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul says to his church members:

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. – Galatians 5:24-24

The choice to follow Christ Jesus cost crucifying the flesh and its desires.

Therefore, when we decide to follow Christ, we put to death our old bodies/selves and its attractions. Spiritual necromania is when we desire the company of what we put to death. Spiritual necromania appears too absurd but shockingly it lurks in the crevices of our souls and hearts, and it is found even in the best of us.

Your old behaviors or your old self is a corpse, and every time you go back to being who you were before or the thing you put to death, you are virtually in company with a corpse. The old deeds are dead deeds, and every time we fall back to our past actions, it’s like embracing a corpse.

It might be an addiction that you rebuked and put behind you, you killed it, that habit died because you stopped giving it oxygen and that situation no longer exists because you stopped feeding it.

There is a famous label usually heard in churches, this label is often earned by those who commit to Christianity then later start to fall or commit apostasy by reverting to old habits, turns away from God and begins to chase after their desires. That label is ‘Backslider.’ A Backslider is a spiritual necromaniac. A Backslider is just as passionate about old habits as a spiritual necromaniac is about dead habits.

Do you ever find yourself running back?

How many of us still run back to those little habits or behavior we put to death? How many of us now and then still find ourselves back to that very thing or person we were addicted too? Notice that, every time people backslide to the old self, they often get hurt even more, and that is because that habit or behavior or person is dead.

For some, it might be an addiction to pornography, social media, alcohol or smoking; you quit and vowed never to do it again, but now and then you still find yourself smoking or drinking alcohol, etc. That addiction is dead.

Spiritual necromania is something many Christians grapple with, and the only way to beat it is to walk in the spirit not according to the flesh. Apostle Paul says:

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace. Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of the righteousness. – Romans 8:5-10

So this ladies and gentlemen is Spiritual Necromania, found in the best of us, many of us grapple with it, and that is how you can defeat it.